This is a little python script I wrote to make my experience with Slack in Linux more enjoyable. I wrote it because I wanted to do a few things that the slack web client can't do. Here are a couple of use cases that motivated me:
I think the official desktop clients might support this, but there isn't one for Linux.
I like my sounds better. Plus, the slack web client doesn't let you choose a separate sound for IMs.
Uses notify-send from libnotify-bin.
This one's a bit quirky. See, I'd like to maintain a presence in certain channels so that people can ping me. For example, I want the support team to be able to tell me the site's on fire. However, I don't want unread messages to make the channel try to get my attention in the slack web client. I also want the channel to be listed with all of the rest of the channels I care about (starred), but I don't want it to have the same importance as the rest of them (greyed).
"Muting" and "Starring" the channel is perfect. It lists the channel with all of the other channels I care about at the top of the list, but it greys it out. The only problem is that if you mute a channel, the slack web client won't pop up notifications and make sound if you're pinged. This script does that.
We have a channel for bots to send us messages ("disk failed on ", " is on fire", "someone put in maintenance mode", etc). I view the stream of automated notifications in a separate little always-open window via the IRC client irssi, using Slack's IRC bridge. Since I'm seeing these messages, I don't want/need the channel to show as unread in my main slack client. I don't want to Mute the channel because it's one I actually care about. This script will automatically mark any new messages in the bot channel as read.
We have a channel where a bot logs every single command that an administrator runs at the shell on every server. Kind of big-brotherish, sure, but it's incredibly useful! However, I don't want to be notified if someone mentions my name in there, because it's probably me sudoing something or editing a file in my homedir.
Yeah, I might be. But I have good reasons for wanting every one of these features, and fortunately, Slack's awesome API gives me the ability to customize things to my heart's content.
I've tested this in Linux only, but it might well work in other OSes. Let me know!
You'll need these packages (debian/ubuntu -- no idea for RedHat and derivatives):
- libnotify-bin
- python-yaml
- python-gtk2
- python-slackclient
- pulseaudio
paplayis used for playing sound. There may be a more universal way of doing this.
Copy config.yaml.example to config.yaml and edit it as necessary. Then run slack-tray.py with the path to the config file as an argument, and it'll do its thing.